JS Bank opens branch in Bahrain

JS Bank strength­ens its GCC busi­ness with the open­ing of a new branch in Bahrain. Pak­istan-based JS Bank to serve a range of cus­tomers in GCC and MENA from its first in­ter­na­tional branch in Bahrain.

Cen­tral Bank of Bahrain (CBB) wel­comes JS Bank's pres­ence in the Bahraini Mar­kets. Pak­istan-based JS Bank has of­fi­cially opened its first branch of­fice out­side of its home coun­try, in Manama, King­dom of Bahrain, tar­get­ing the GCC, and even­tu­ally the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The an­nounce­ment fol­lows the award­ing of a whole­sale con­ven­tional bank­ing li­cense to JS Bank by the Cen­tral Bank of Bahrain (CBB) last year. As the eighth li­censed Pak­istani whole­sale bank in Bahrain, JS Bank will serve re­gional busi­nesses with in­ter­ests in Pak­istan, non-res­i­dent Pak­istani ex­pa­tri­ates, other Pak­istani banks with­out over­seas branches, and Pak­istani govern­ment en­ti­ties. Its ser­vice of­fer­ings in­clude trade fi­nance, trea­sury, in­sti­tu­tional bank­ing, cor­po­rate bank­ing, and pri­vate bank­ing & wealth man­age­ment.

CBB Di­rec­tor of Li­cens­ing and Pol­icy, Ahmed Al Bas­sam wel­comed JS Bank's new level of pres­ence in the GCC mar­ket. "The grow­ing num­ber of Pak­istani banks with branches in Bahrain is a pos­i­tive re­flec­tion of the at­trac­tive­ness of the King­dom's bank­ing sec­tor, and builds upon his­toric trade re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries. We wel­come this pos­i­tive trend and look for­ward to work­ing closely with JS Bank in the years ahead," he said. JS Bank Chair­man, Ja­hangir Sid­diqui said that the Bank is pleased to be con­tribut­ing fur­ther to strength­en­ing busi­ness re­la­tions be­tween the GCC and Pak­istan.

"The GCC was al­ready an im­por­tant mar­ket for us which we now seek to de­velop fur­ther through a phys­i­cal pres­ence here. In ad­di­tion to hav­ing two bank­ing hubs in Bahrain and Dubai, the re­gion also has a size­able Pak­istani ex­pa­tri­ate com­mu­nity, in­clud­ing many run­ning their own busi­nesses who have a strong need for our ser­vices. The ties be­tween the GCC and Pak­istan, both eco­nomic and diplo­matic, date back decades, and we are com­mit­ted to help­ing to fur­ther strengthen this re­la­tion­ship, while also serv­ing the busi­ness com­mu­nity,".